Songs for Darkness

A novel that captures the collective pain of a nation through the stories of four Lebanese women.

Only songs are able to comfort the soul in its darkness—but can anyone hear them?

Iman Humaydan’s saga recalls the voices of four generations of women from one family in the imaginary village of Kasura, in Mount Lebanon. Its narrator, Asmahan, named after the beloved Syrian singer, has devoted her adult life to recovering the stories of her ancestors, who persisted in the shadows of male suprema...